Why were repressions needed? Why were scientists shot and imprisoned in the USSR?
Public interest in Stalin's repressions continues to exist, and this is no coincidence.
Many feel that today's political problems are somewhat similar.
And some people think that Stalin's recipes might be suitable.
This is, of course, a mistake.
But it is still difficult to justify why this is a mistake using scientific rather than journalistic means.
Historians have figured out the repressions themselves, how they were organized and what their scale was.
Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk, for example, writes that “...now professional historiography has reached a high level of agreement based on in-depth research of archives.”
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/06/29/701835-fenomen-terrora
However, from another of his articles it follows that the reasons for the “Great Terror” are still not entirely clear.
https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2017/07/06/712528-bolshogo-terrora
I have an answer, strict and scientific.
But first, about what “the agreement of professional historiography” looks like, according to Oleg Khlevnyuk.
Let's discard the myths right away.
1) Stalin had nothing to do with it; he, of course, knew everything.
Stalin not only knew, he directed the “great terror” in real time, down to the smallest detail.
2) The “Great Terror” was not an initiative of regional authorities or local party secretaries.
Stalin himself never tried to blame the regional party leadership for the repressions of 1937-1938.
Instead, he proposed a myth about “enemies who infiltrated the ranks of the NKVD” and “slanderers” from ordinary citizens who wrote statements against honest people.
3) The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 was not at all the result of denunciations.
Denunciations of citizens against each other did not have a significant impact on the course and scale of repressions.
Now about what is known about the “Great Terror of 1937-1938” and its mechanism.
Terror and repressions under Stalin were a constant phenomenon.
But the wave of terror of 1937-1938 was exceptionally large.
In 1937-1938 At least 1.6 million people were arrested, of whom more than 680,000 were executed.
Khlevnyuk gives a simple quantitative calculation:
“Taking into account the fact that the most intensive repressions were used for just over a year (August 1937 - November 1938), it turns out that about 100,000 people were arrested every month, of which more than 40,000 were shot.”
The scale of violence was monstrous!
The opinion that the terror of 1937-1938 consisted of the destruction of the elite: party workers, engineers, military men, writers, etc. not entirely correct.
For example, Khlevnyuk writes that there were several tens of thousands of managers at different levels. Of the 1.6 million victims.
Here's attention!
1) The victims of terror were ordinary Soviet people who did not hold positions and were not members of the party.
2) Decisions to conduct mass operations were made by the leadership, more precisely by Stalin.
The “Great Terror” was a well-organized, planned procession and followed orders from the center.
3) The goal was to “liquidate physically or isolate in camps those groups of the population that the Stalinist regime considered potentially dangerous - former “kulaks”, former officers of the tsarist and white armies, clergy, former members of parties hostile to the Bolsheviks - Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and other “suspicious” , as well as “national counter-revolutionary contingents” - Poles, Germans, Romanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Afghans, Iranians, Chinese, Koreans.
4) All “hostile categories” were taken into account in the authorities, according to the available lists, and the first repressions took place.
Subsequently, a chain was launched: arrest-interrogations - testimony - new hostile elements.
That is why arrest limits have increased.
5) Stalin personally directed the repressions.
Here are his orders quoted by the historian:
"Krasnoyarsk. Krasnoyarsk. The arson of the flour mill must be organized by enemies. Take all measures to uncover the arsonists. The perpetrators will be judged expeditiously. The sentence is execution"; “Beat Unschlicht for not handing over Polish agents to the regions”; “To T. Yezhov. Dmitriev seems to be acting rather sluggishly. It is necessary to immediately arrest all (both small and large) participants in the “rebel groups” in the Urals”; "To T. Yezhov. Very important. We need to walk through the Udmurt, Mari, Chuvash, Mordovian republics, walk with a broom"; "To T. Yezhov. Very good! Keep digging and cleaning out this Polish spy dirt"; "To T. Yezhov. The line of the Socialist Revolutionaries (left and right together) is not unwound<...>It must be borne in mind that we still have quite a few Socialist-Revolutionaries in our army and outside the army. Does the NKVD have a record of the Socialist Revolutionaries (“former”) in the army? I would like to receive it as soon as possible<...>What has been done to identify and arrest all Iranians in Baku and Azerbaijan?"
I think there can be no doubt after reading such orders.
Now let's return to the question - why?
Khlevnyuk points out several possible explanations and writes that the debate continues.
1) At the end of 1937, the first elections to the Soviets were held on the basis of secret ballot, and Stalin insured himself against surprises in a way that he understood.
This is the weakest explanation.
2) Repression was a means of social engineering
Society was subject to unification.
A fair question arises: why did unification need to be sharply accelerated in 1937-1938?
3) The “Great Terror” pointed out the reason for the difficulties and hard life of the people, while at the same time allowing them to let off steam.
4) It was necessary to provide labor for the growing Gulag economy.
This is a weak version - there were too many executions of able-bodied people, while the Gulag was unable to absorb new human intake.
5) Finally, a version that is widely popular today: the threat of war emerged, and Stalin was clearing out the rear, destroying the “fifth column”.
However, after Stalin's death, the vast majority of those arrested in 1937-1938 were found innocent.
They were not a “fifth column” at all.
My explanation allows us to understand not only why there was this wave and why it was in 1937-1938.
It also explains well why Stalin and his experience have not yet been forgotten, but have not been implemented.
The “Great Terror” of 1937-1938 took place during a period similar to ours.
In the USSR of 1933-1945 there was a question about the subject of power.
In the modern history of Russia, a similar issue is resolved in 2005-2017.
The subject of power can be either the ruler or the elite.
At that time, the sole ruler had to win.
Stalin inherited a party in which this same elite existed - the heirs of Lenin, equal to Stalin or even more eminent than himself.
Stalin successfully fought for formal leadership, but he became the undisputed sole ruler only after the Great Terror.
As long as the old leaders - recognized revolutionaries, Lenin's heirs - continued to live and work, the preconditions remained for challenging Stalin's power as the sole ruler.
The "Great Terror" of 1937-1938 was a means of destroying the elite and establishing the power of a single ruler.
Why did the repression affect the common people and not be limited to the top?
You need to understand the ideological basis, the Marxist paradigm.
Marxism does not recognize loners and the initiative of the elite.
In Marxism, any leader expresses the ideas of a class or social group.
Why is the peasantry dangerous, for example?
Not at all because it can rebel and start a peasant war.
The peasants are dangerous because they are the petty bourgeoisie.
This means that they will always support and/or nominate from their midst political leaders who will fight against the dictatorship of the proletariat, the power of the workers and the Bolsheviks.
It is not enough to root out prominent leaders with dubious views.
It is necessary to destroy their social support, those same “hostile elements” that have been taken into account.
This explains why the terror affected ordinary people.
Why exactly in 1937-1938?
Because during the first four years of each period of social reorganization, the basic plan is formed and the leading force of the social process emerges.
This is such a law of cyclical development.
Why are we interested in this today?
And why do some dream of a return to the practices of Stalinism?
Because we are going through the same process.
But he:
- ends,
- has opposite vectors.
Stalin established his sole power, in fact fulfilling the historical social order, albeit with very specific methods, even excessively.
He deprived the elite of its subjectivity and established the only subject of power - the elected ruler.
Such imperious subjectivity existed in our Fatherland until Putin.
However, Putin, more unconsciously than consciously, fulfilled a new historical social order.
In our country now the power of a single elected ruler is being replaced by the power of an elected elite.
In 2008, just in the fourth year of the new period, Putin gave presidential power to Medvedev.
The sole ruler was desubjectivized, and there were at least two rulers.
And it’s impossible to return everything back.
Now it’s clear why some part of the elite dreams of Stalinism?
They don’t want there to be many leaders, they don’t want collective power in which compromises must be sought and found, they want the restoration of individual rule.
And this can only be done by unleashing a new “great terror”, that is, by destroying the leaders of all other groups, from Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky to Navalny, Kasyanov, Yavlinsky and our modern Trotsky - Khodorkovsky (although perhaps the Trotsky of the new Russia was still Berezovsky), and out of habit of systemic thinking, their social base, at least some crackers and protest-opposition intelligentsia).
But none of this will happen.
The current vector of development is the transition to the power of an elected elite.
The elected elite is a set of leaders and power as their interaction.
If someone tries to return the sole power of an elected ruler, he will end his political career almost instantly.
Putin sometimes looks like the only, sole ruler, but he certainly is not.
Practical Stalinism has and will not have a place in modern social life in Russia.
And that's great.
(By the way, I have the impression that, due to their mental limitations, Koba’s current fans do not really understand the meaning of the word “liberal”, using it as a label to designate everyone who dares to criticize their absurd constructions. Apparently, it is a fact that Comrade Stalin can be criticized not only the Novodvorskys and Nemtsovs - it just doesn’t fit in the minds of the adherents).
And we will not dissuade them - because... There is no point in arguing with fanatics. However, it is necessary and necessary to show the cannibalistic nature of their fabrications, so that various gullible and impressionable people do not inadvertently “join” this poison.
Because I’m currently working on new material on Crimea, which is why I have to refer a lot to the results of the research of my fellow local historians, in particular, to books in memory of victims of political repression. The second volume is just at hand, open it and read it.
- Gagin Ivan Karlovich, born in 1905, place of birth: Dzhankoy district, German, from peasants - “kulaks”, non-party, not married, low education, place of residence before arrest: Dzhankoy district, member of the Hofnungsfeld collective farm, arrested 04.02 .1938 Dzhankoysky District NKVD of Crimea, Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: religious propaganda, illegal performance of religious rites.
Condemned on 02/15/1938 by the “troika” of the NKVD of Crimea to execution with confiscation of property, executed on 04/03/1938, rehabilitated on 05/15/1989 by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Crimean Region.
Rehabilitated by history. Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Book two - Simferopol, Antiqua, 2006. - p. 114.
I’m just anticipating the enthusiastic cries of the red “Murzilkas”: “they shot correctly, there’s no need to spread religious dope!”
Of course, it’s a very terrible crime - a person retained faith in God and offered his prayers to Him.
And here is another “enemy of the people”:
- Guy (Nartov, Ivanov, Sergeev) Petr Grigorievich, born in 1912, born in Rostov-on-Don, Ukrainian, from a peasant background, unemployed, married, secondary education, place of residence before arrest - Kerch, hydraulic engineer of Azovvodstroy, arrested on November 20, 1937 by the Kerch State Administration of the NKVD of Crimea, Article 58-7, 10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: slander about the life of workers, a call against signing up for a loan, praise of life in the USA. Condemned to death on November 25, 1937. Rehabilitated on February 20, 1961 by the Crimean Regional Court.
Ibid., p.117
You can get an idea of how workers and peasants lived in the USSR, at least from these letters http://community.livejournal.com/ru_history/2437092.html. Moreover, we note that the letters were quite loyal, in which people were simply trying to draw the attention of management to pressing problems.
Naturally, some people lost their nerves when contemplating injustice every day, and they wrote completely different letters, not at all embarrassed in their expressions. And it is quite logical that those who had the courage to express their attitude towards the Soviet order did not believe the propaganda and understood that if the authorities shout about the difficult situation of the workers, for example, in England, then in fact it is not so difficult at all.
In any case, criticism of the bestial living conditions created by the communists is not slander, which in this case the Soviets themselves admitted by rehabilitating the Crimean man they shot in 1961.
Well, this man, from the point of view of apologists, is definitely guilty:
Gershits Egor Kondratievich, born in 1871, born in Saratov region, German, peasant, unemployed, married, low education, place of residence before arrest in Evpatoria, watchman of the Holiday Home of the Central Committee of the Railways of the South, arrested 07/05. 1937 Yevpatoriya RO NKVD of Crimea, Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, wrote letters to Germany about the famine in the USSR. Condemned to death on August 8, 1937. Rehabilitated on November 30, 1989 by the Prosecutor's Office of the Crimean Region.
Ibid., p.154
After all, is it possible to write abroad that people are dying of hunger on collective farms? No, this is completely unacceptable!!! After all, it is known that the Holodomor was invented by enemies in order to discredit Soviet history. And how can one imagine that in the “land of happy childhood” people would die of hunger?And then it is necessary to say with a learned look that “under the kings there was a famine and a famine.”Let's move on.
Gladky Ivan Karpovich, born in 1880, born in Kerch, Russian, clergy, b/p, married, arr. secondary, theological seminary, place of residence before arrest - Karasubazar, priest of the Greek church, arrested on 02/20/1938 by the Karasubazar RO NKVD of Crimea, Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: counter-revolutionary agitation, sentenced by the troika on 04/17/1938 to execution with confiscation of property, shot on 05/05/1938. Rehabilitated on 05/29/1989 by the Prosecutor's Office of the Crimean Region.
There. same, p.161
And here too everything is clear. Firstly, an Orthodox priest is a priori an enemy of the Soviet system, and therefore cannot help but agitate. I read a sermon in church, even if I didn’t say anything about the regime in it - it’s still propaganda. And since the priests at that time were already the most courageous and zealous, they could not be hypocrites, saying that everything was wonderful, looking at Soviet reality. What was the martyr's crown accepted for?
The only question that arises is: why were the “comrades” so frightened that the anti-religious policy of the authorities was curtailed on the eve of the war? On the contrary, as we can see from this example, if in previous years more and more priests were expelled and all sorts of difficulties were created for them, then during the years of the “great Stalinist cleansing” they began to be shot en masse.
Therefore the so-called “Orthodox Stalinists,” with their insane eclecticism, personally anger me even more than their atheistic counterparts. This is about the same as trying to combine Christianity and Satanism.
Note that the above examples are only a small part of the long list of names published in the book. You can continue quoting, but the publication format does not allow this. Let us briefly note the following facts about the Bolshevik terror in Crimea in 1937-1938:
- non-party members predominate among those repressed;
- party workers make up an insignificant percentage of the total number of repressed people;
- in social terms, the “working people” - workers and peasants - suffered the most. In particular, representatives of German and Greek nationalities. Almost all of them were classified as spies and agents of influence.
Therefore, when 1937 is reduced only to the massacre of a handful of party members, this is a deliberate understatement of the scale of the tragedy. Everything is clear with those who thoughtlessly replicate such fabrications, and one can feel sorry for them. But I can’t call those who deliberately disseminate such information and at the same time declare that “few were shot” anything other than moral monsters.
The International Society “Memorial” hosted a seminar on the research and educational project “Moscow. Places of Memory”, within the framework of which Konstantin Tomilin, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, senior researcher at the Vavilov IIET RAS, editor-compiler of the website “Social History of Russian Science”, spoke about the repressions against scientists in the USSR. Lenta.ru publishes excerpts from his speech.
Forms of repression
Modern historians know about the arrests of about 100 members and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences during Soviet times. Of these, 44 died: 23 were shot, 13 died in custody, 8 in exile. Some went missing in the camps.
Scientists were deported from the country. The story of the so-called “philosophical ship” - the forced expulsion of more than 160 members of the intelligentsia in 1922 - is typical here. Some scientists, on the contrary, were forcibly detained - for example, Pyotr Kapitsa in 1934. They were driven into "sharashkas", deprived of scientific titles and the opportunity to conduct scientific work, and expelled from the Academy of Sciences.
After being fired for ideological reasons, scientists could not find work. In 1930, mass liquidation of scientific societies followed. Dirty PR campaigns were carried out in newspapers against people of science, and obstacles were created to self-organization and international communication of the scientific community.
Certain sciences (local history, genetics) were also destroyed, against which ideological campaigns were carried out, and repressions against individual scientific works were practiced.
It is important to remember that the USSR was an ideological state whose goal was to build communism. In all sciences, the state imposed a class approach, established total control over society, and treated people as consumables.
Power about scientists
After coming to power, the Bolsheviks viewed scientists as representatives of the old bourgeois world. Lenin’s phrase, which he wrote on September 3, 1921, in response to an appeal from the Russian Physicochemical Society in defense of Professor Tikhvinsky, has gone down in history: “T. Gorbunov! Send a request to the Cheka. Tikhvinsky was not “accidentally” arrested: chemistry and counter-revolution are not mutually exclusive.”
The head of the department of scientific institutions of the Council of People's Commissars, Voronov, at a meeting with the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences Oldenburg in 1928, threatened: “The government waited ten years and gave many advances, but in the eleventh year it will deal with the Academy of Sciences in its own way. The Academy of Sciences failed to understand and take the position it should take in the Soviet state.”
And here is an example of PR campaigns in the press regarding elections to the Academy of Sciences: “In the twelfth year of the proletarian dictatorship, it is time to destroy the old rotten relic of secret voting. In the Soviet Republic, every honest citizen must vote openly.” This is a quote from the resolution of the production conference of the Baltic Plant, published in Leningradskaya Pravda (1929). “We demand that all activities of the Academy of Sciences take place under the control of the entire proletarian community,” this is from the statement of the workers of the Red Triangle plant.
The head of the scientific department of the Moscow city party committee, Kolman, published two articles in 1931: “Sabotage in science” and “Sabotage mathematization of science,” in which he equated mathematization and sabotage: “No less characteristic than a crude counterfeit of the “Soviet style,” is the exceptional abundance of mathematical calculations and formulas with which wrecking works are replete.”
Scientists about power
But what did the scientists themselves say? Here we see a diametrically opposed opinion about the development of science. Mathematician Dmitry Egorov wrote: “Imposing a standard worldview on scientists is genuine sabotage.” Vernadsky, in a letter to his son, describes a discussion of the charter of the Academy of Sciences: in his speech, he “pointed out the need for free scientific work and careful attitude towards talents, the protection of talented people as the greatest good of the country - it was a bomb.” Vernadsky wrote the letter abroad, so he spoke freely about what was happening.
Vavilov noted in his diary: “We must learn to single out great, truly talented people. I know that there are very few of them, but without them you can’t do anything.” That is, we see two completely different views on the development of science. The authorities want scientists to be like soldiers, and the scientists themselves say that scientific work requires freedom of creativity, talented people and an understanding of the uniqueness of the individual on the part of the authorities.
Major milestones of repression
In 1918-1919, scientists were arrested as representatives of a certain social class; they were taken hostage during the Civil War. In 1921, the case of the Petrograd Combat Organization was considered, as a result of which several scientists died. In 1928-1930, trials of wrecking engineers, the “Shakhty Trial”, “the case of the Industrial Party”, “the case of the Labor Peasant Party”, “the case of the Academy of Sciences” took place.
In 1929, the first aviation “sharashka” appeared. In the same year, under great pressure from the party, communists were admitted to the Academy of Sciences. But the situation was constantly changing, and a year later those communists who were fighting their way into the academy fell into disgrace themselves, they were arrested and shot (Bukharin, Ryazanov).
Four academicians and nine corresponding members were arrested in the “Academy of Sciences case.” The entire historical direction of science was destroyed, all those arrested were exiled. Elderly scientists died in exile. At the same time, all-Union societies were closed, local history was destroyed, and the Moscow Mathematical Society miraculously survived.
In 1934, a spontaneous decision arose to transfer the Academy of Sciences from Leningrad to Moscow. This came as a surprise even to the local party organization. The document also specified a time frame - three months, which was absolutely impossible. This had a negative impact on the work of scientists; many did not want to move to Moscow. Here it was possible to find a compromise with the authorities: the number of institutes was increased, additional funding was allocated and scientific degrees were restored.
After the assassination of Kirov in 1935, the intelligentsia, including scientists, were arrested and deported. A year later, mass repressions against all sectors of society began in the country.
With the direct participation of Lavrenty Beria, at the end of 1938, the aviation “sharashka” TsKB-29 was created, which brought together aircraft designers who had not yet died by that time. In 1941, with the outbreak of war, arrests of scientists of German origin or German-speaking occurred, especially in Leningrad. Some of them died, for example, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor of Leningrad State University Vladimir Ignatovsky.
The years 1946-1953 were marked by ideological campaigns against sycophancy, “courts of honor” against cosmopolitanism, repeated repressions and the organization of a “sharashka” for German scientists. In 1948, at a session of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, genetics was destroyed, and a danger arose for other scientific areas. This happened when Lysenko sent his report to Stalin, and he supported it. What was happening was presented as a victory of Michurin’s naturalistic biology over the pseudoscience of genetics.
At the same time, the idea arose of holding conferences in other areas of science - to defeat what they believed were pseudoscientific trends. In 1949, preparations for such a conference on physics began, and Vavilov managed to introduce an item on its agenda about participation in the training of scientists from the Academy of Sciences.
This radically changed the situation. Transcripts of those meetings have been preserved, from which it is clear how scientists defended their opinions; more than a hundred people came. Vitaly Ginzburg alone attended ten meetings, and in the end it was decided to postpone the conference as unprepared.
After Stalin's death, scientific activity was restored, and the struggle for genetics began. But only after Khrushchev’s removal in October 1964 was genetics given the opportunity to develop freely. The restoration of the humanitarian direction (history, philosophy) in the country began with the arrival of a new generation of scientists (though, primarily within the framework of the Marxist paradigm).
The authorities tried to control these processes, and a fight against dissidents began. There was a wave of emigration, primarily Jewish. Only in December 1986, after the release of political prisoners, the beginning of perestroika and glasnost, normal conditions for the development of science began to be restored. However, due to radical reforms in the economy, a sharp transition from a planned to a market economy, science was destroyed - economic and internal (transition to other areas) emigration of scientists.
Where and how much
The greatest damage was caused to the humanitarian areas of science. The Bolsheviks believed that they had the ultimate truth and they did not need philosophers of other directions. Later it turned out that they did not need Marxist philosophers either; only those “philosophers” remained in demand who, according to the moment, could quickly find a convenient phrase from Marx, Engels or Lenin. Enormous damage was done to the historical direction, since here Lenin was called the founder of the state, and what happened before was considered prehistory.
The scientific and technical fields suffered fewer losses, but outstanding scientists also died there. For example, theoretical physicist Matvey Bronstein served a year in prison. Physicist Vladimir Fok was also arrested, brought to Moscow and only thanks to Kapitsa’s petition was released.
If we take the most prominent experimental physicists, we will see that Lev Shubnikov was shot, Pyotr Kapitsa was detained in 1934, and then was in disgrace for refusing to participate in the atomic project until Stalin’s death.
As for biology, the death of Vavilov is at the center here. In addition to him, Georgy Karpechenko died, a number of biologists were arrested, and genetics was destroyed. Some scientists were suspended from work by decision of the Central Committee in 1948, and they were prohibited from teaching. According to the lists, there were more than a hundred people; some were expelled from the party, such as Joseph Rappoport.
Things were no better in chemistry. Chemist Vladimir Ipatiev did not return to the USSR due to the situation in the country. In 1928, Yevgeny Shpitalsky died in prison under unclear circumstances.
The repression did not spare technical areas. Georgy Langemak, the inventor of the Katyusha, was shot, and Sergei Korolev and Viktor Glushkov from the Jet Institute were arrested. Korolev was on the execution list, already signed by Stalin, Molotov and Kaganovich, but for unknown reasons he was not shot.
Mathematicians were less affected. Dmitry Selivanov was arrested and then expelled from the country. Nikolai Luzin was not repressed, but there was political persecution of the academician and an analysis of his personal file by a commission of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the summer of 1936.
Astronomy has been hit hard. In 1936, the “Pulkovo case” arose; according to scientists, up to 30 percent of Soviet astronomers were repressed. These included the director of the Pulkovo Observatory, Boris Gerasimovich, and the director of the Astronomical Institute, Boris Numerov (shot in 1941 in the Oryol prison).
Data on repressions against scientists - members of the Academy of Sciences were first accumulated by Felix Perchenko. He was also at the forefront of research into the repressions against orientalists (about 900 people were repressed) and geologists (969 people).
Due to the fact that a memo to Khrushchev on the number of convicted people from 1921 to 1953 has once again come to light, I cannot ignore the topic of repression.
The memo itself and, most importantly, the information it contains, became known to many people interested in politics for quite a long time. The note contains absolutely accurate numbers of repressed citizens. Of course, these numbers are not small and they will frighten and terrify a person who knows the topic. But as you know, everything is learned by comparison. This is what we will do, we will compare.
Those who have not yet managed to remember the exact numbers of repressions by heart - you now have such an opportunity.
So, from 1921 to 1953, 642,980 people were executed; 765,180 people were exiled
Placed in detention - 2,369,220 people.
Total - 3,777,380
Anyone who dares to say a figure even somewhat large about the scale of repression is blatantly and shamelessly lying. Many people have questions: why are the numbers so large? Well, let's figure it out.
Amnesty of the Provisional Government.
One of the reasons why so many people were repressed by the Soviet government was the general amnesty of the provisional government. And to be more precise, Kerensky. You don’t have to go far to find this data, you don’t have to rummage through the archives, just open Wikipedia and type “Provisional Government”:
A general political amnesty has been declared in Russia, and the prison terms of persons held in custody under court sentences for general criminal offenses have been reduced by half. About 90 thousand prisoners were released, among whom were thousands of thieves and raiders, popularly nicknamed “Kerensky’s chicks” (Wiki).
On March 6, the Provisional Government adopted a Decree on political amnesty. In total, as a result of the amnesty, more than 88 thousand prisoners were released, of which 67.8 thousand were convicted of criminal offenses. As a result of the amnesty, the total number of prisoners from March 1 to April 1, 1917 was reduced by 75%.
On March 17, 1917, the Provisional Government issued a Resolution “On easing the fate of persons who have committed criminal offenses,” i.e. on amnesty for those convicted of ordinary crimes. However, only those convicts who expressed their readiness to serve their Motherland on the battlefield were subject to amnesty.
The Provisional Government's hopes of recruiting prisoners into the army did not materialize, and many of those released fled from their units when possible. - Source
Thus, a huge number of criminals, thieves, murderers and other asocial elements were released, with whom the Soviet government would have to fight directly in the future. What can we say about the fact that all the exiled people who were not in prison quickly fled all over Russia after the amnesty.
Civil War.
There is nothing more terrible in the History of people and civilization than civil war.
A war in which brother goes against brother and son against father. When citizens of one country, subjects of one state kill each other on the basis of political and ideological differences.
We still haven't recovered from this civil war, let alone the state of society right after the civil war ended. And the realities of such events are such that after a civil war, in any, even the most democratic country in the world, the winning side will repress the losing side.
For the simple reason that in order for society to continue to develop, it must be holistic, unified, it must look forward to a bright future, and not engage in self-destruction. It is for this reason that those who have not accepted defeat, those who have not accepted the new order, those who continue direct or hidden confrontation, those who continue to incite hatred and encourage people to fight - are subject to destruction.
Here you have political repression and persecution of the church. But not because pluralism of opinions is impermissible, but because these people actively participated in the civil war and did not stop their “struggle” after its end. This is another reason why so many people ended up in the Gulags.
Relative numbers.
And now we come to the most interesting thing, to comparison and the transition from absolute numbers to relative numbers.
Population of the USSR in 1920 - 137,727,000 people Population of the USSR in 1951 - 182,321,000 people
An increase of 44,594,000 people despite the civil war and the Second World War, which claimed far more lives than repression.
On average, we get that the population of the USSR in the period from 1921 to 1951 was 160 million people.
In total, 3,777,380 people were convicted in the USSR, which is two percent (2%) of the total average population of the country, 2% - in 30 years!!! Divide 2 by 30, it turns out that per year, 0.06% of the total population was repressed. This is despite the civil war and the fight against fascist collaborators (collaborators, traitors and traitors who sided with Hitler) after the Great Patriotic War.
This means that every year 99.94% of law-abiding citizens of our Motherland quietly worked, worked, studied, received treatment, gave birth to children, invented, rested, and so on. In general, we lived the most normal human life.
Half the country was sitting. Half the country was guarded.
Well, the last and most important thing. Many people like to say that we supposedly sat half a third of the country, guarded a third of the country, and knocked on a third of the country. And the fact that in the memo only counter-revolutionary fighters are indicated, but if you add up the number of those who were imprisoned for political reasons and those who were imprisoned for criminal reasons, the numbers will be generally terrible.
Yes, the numbers are scary until you compare them with anything. Here is a table that shows the total number of prisoners, both repressed and criminals, both in prisons and in camps. And their comparison with the total number of prisoners in other countries
According to this table, it turns out that on average, in the Stalinist USSR there were 583 prisoners (both criminal and repressive) per 100,000 free people.
In the early 90s, at the height of crime in our country, only in criminal cases, without political repression, there were 647 prisoners per 100,000 free people.
The table shows the United States during the Clinton era. Quite calm years even before the global financial crisis, and even then, it turned out that in the United States there were 626 people imprisoned per 100 available.
I decided to do a little digging into modern numbers. According to WikiNews, there are currently 2,085,620 prisoners in the United States, which is 714 prisoners per 100,000.
And in Putin’s stable Russia, the number of prisoners has sharply decreased compared to the dashing 90s, and now we have 532 prisoners per 100,000.
In the 20s and ending in 1953. During this period, mass arrests took place and special camps for political prisoners were created. No historian can name the exact number of victims of Stalin's repressions. More than a million people were convicted under Article 58.
Origin of the term
Stalin's terror affected almost all sectors of society. For more than twenty years, Soviet citizens lived in constant fear - one wrong word or even a gesture could cost their lives. It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of what Stalin’s terror was based on. But of course, the main component of this phenomenon is fear.
The word terror translated from Latin is “horror”. The method of governing a country based on instilling fear has been used by rulers since ancient times. For the Soviet leader, Ivan the Terrible served as a historical example. Stalin's terror is in some ways a more modern version of the Oprichnina.
Ideology
The midwife of history is what Karl Marx called violence. The German philosopher saw only evil in the safety and inviolability of members of society. Stalin used Marx's idea.
The ideological basis of the repressions that began in the 20s was formulated in July 1928 in the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party.” At first, Stalin's terror was a class struggle, which was supposedly needed to resist the overthrown forces. But the repressions continued even after all the so-called counter-revolutionaries ended up in camps or were shot. The peculiarity of Stalin's policy was its complete non-compliance with the Soviet Constitution.
If at the beginning of Stalin's repressions the state security agencies fought against opponents of the revolution, then by the mid-thirties arrests of old communists began - people selflessly devoted to the party. Ordinary Soviet citizens were already afraid not only of NKVD officers, but also of each other. Denunciation has become the main tool in the fight against “enemies of the people.”
Stalin's repressions were preceded by the "Red Terror", which began during the Civil War. These two political phenomena have many similarities. However, after the end of the Civil War, almost all cases of political crimes were based on falsification of charges. During the “Red Terror,” those who disagreed with the new regime, of whom there were many during the creation of the new state, were imprisoned and shot first of all.
The case of lyceum students
Officially, the period of Stalinist repressions began in 1922. But one of the first high-profile cases dates back to 1925. It was this year that a special department of the NKVD fabricated a case accusing graduates of the Alexander Lyceum of counter-revolutionary activities.
On February 15, over 150 people were arrested. Not all of them were related to the above-mentioned educational institution. Among those convicted were former students of the School of Law and officers of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment. Those arrested were accused of assisting the international bourgeoisie.
Many were shot already in June. 25 people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. 29 of those arrested were sent into exile. Vladimir Shilder, a former teacher, was 70 years old at that time. He died during the investigation. Nikolai Golitsyn, the last chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire, was sentenced to death.
Shakhty case
The charges under Article 58 were ridiculous. A person who does not speak foreign languages and has never communicated with a citizen of a Western state in his life could easily be accused of colluding with American agents. During the investigation, torture was often used. Only the strongest could withstand them. Often those under investigation signed a confession only in order to complete the execution, which sometimes lasted for weeks.
In July 1928, coal industry specialists became victims of Stalin's terror. This case was called "Shakhty". The heads of Donbass enterprises were accused of sabotage, sabotage, creating an underground counter-revolutionary organization, and assisting foreign spies.
The 1920s saw several high-profile cases. Dispossession continued until the early thirties. It is impossible to calculate the number of victims of Stalin’s repressions, because no one carefully kept statistics in those days. In the nineties, the KGB archives became available, but even after that, researchers did not receive comprehensive information. However, separate execution lists were made public, which became a terrible symbol of Stalin’s repressions.
The Great Terror is a term that applies to a short period of Soviet history. It lasted only two years - from 1937 to 1938. Researchers provide more accurate data about victims during this period. 1,548,366 people were arrested. Shot - 681,692. It was a fight “against the remnants of the capitalist classes.”
Causes of the "Great Terror"
During Stalin's times, a doctrine was developed to strengthen the class struggle. This was only a formal reason for the extermination of hundreds of people. Among the victims of Stalin's terror of the 30s were writers, scientists, military men, and engineers. Why was it necessary to get rid of representatives of the intelligentsia, specialists who could benefit the Soviet state? Historians offer various answers to these questions.
Among modern researchers there are those who are convinced that Stalin had only an indirect connection to the repressions of 1937-1938. However, his signature appears on almost every execution list, and in addition, there is a lot of documentary evidence of his involvement in mass arrests.
Stalin strove for sole power. Any relaxation could lead to a real, not fictitious conspiracy. One of the foreign historians compared the Stalinist terror of the 30s with the Jacobin terror. But if the last phenomenon, which took place in France at the end of the 18th century, involved the destruction of representatives of a certain social class, then in the USSR people who were often unrelated to each other were arrested and executed.
So, the reason for the repression was the desire for sole, unconditional power. But there was a need for formulation, an official justification for the need for mass arrests.
Occasion
On December 1, 1934, Kirov was killed. This event became the formal reason for the arrest of the killer. According to the results of the investigation, which was again fabricated, Leonid Nikolaev did not act independently, but as a member of an opposition organization. Stalin subsequently used the murder of Kirov in the fight against political opponents. Zinoviev, Kamenev and all their supporters were arrested.
Trial of Red Army officers
After the murder of Kirov, trials of the military began. One of the first victims of the Great Terror was G. D. Guy. The military leader was arrested for the phrase “Stalin must be removed,” which he uttered while intoxicated. It is worth saying that in the mid-thirties, denunciation reached its apogee. People who had worked in the same organization for many years stopped trusting each other. Denunciations were written not only against enemies, but also against friends. Not only for selfish reasons, but also out of fear.
In 1937, a trial of a group of Red Army officers took place. They were accused of anti-Soviet activities and assistance to Trotsky, who by that time was already abroad. The hit list included:
- Tukhachevsky M. N.
- Yakir I. E.
- Uborevich I. P.
- Eideman R.P.
- Putna V.K.
- Primakov V. M.
- Gamarnik Ya. B.
- Feldman B. M.
The witch hunt continued. In the hands of NKVD officers there was a recording of Kamenev’s negotiations with Bukharin - there was talk of creating a “right-left” opposition. At the beginning of March 1937, with a report that spoke of the need to eliminate the Trotskyists.
According to the report of the General Commissioner of State Security Yezhov, Bukharin and Rykov were planning terror against the leader. A new term appeared in Stalinist terminology - “Trotskyist-Bukharinsky,” which means “directed against the interests of the party.”
In addition to the above-mentioned political figures, about 70 people were arrested. 52 were shot. Among them were those who took a direct part in the repressions of the 20s. Thus, state security officers and political figures Yakov Agronom, Alexander Gurevich, Levon Mirzoyan, Vladimir Polonsky, Nikolai Popov and others were shot.
Lavrentiy Beria was involved in the “Tukhachevsky case”, but he managed to survive the “purge”. In 1941, he took the post of General Commissioner of State Security. Beria was already executed after the death of Stalin - in December 1953.
Repressed scientists
In 1937, revolutionaries and political figures became victims of Stalin's terror. And very soon arrests of representatives of completely different social strata began. People who had nothing to do with politics were sent to the camps. It’s easy to guess what the consequences of Stalin’s repressions were by reading the lists presented below. The “Great Terror” became a brake on the development of science, culture, and art.
Scientists who became victims of Stalinist repressions:
- Matvey Bronstein.
- Alexander Witt.
- Hans Gelman.
- Semyon Shubin.
- Evgeny Pereplekin.
- Innokenty Balanovsky.
- Dmitry Eropkin.
- Boris Numerov.
- Nikolay Vavilov.
- Sergei Korolev.
Writers and poets
In 1933, Osip Mandelstam wrote an epigram with obvious anti-Stalinist overtones, which he read to several dozen people. Boris Pasternak called the poet's act suicide. He turned out to be right. Mandelstam was arrested and sent into exile in Cherdyn. There he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and a little later, with the assistance of Bukharin, he was transferred to Voronezh.
Boris Pilnyak wrote “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” in 1926. The characters in this work are fictitious, at least that’s what the author claims in the preface. But everyone who read the story in the 20s, it became clear that it was based on the version of the murder of Mikhail Frunze.
Somehow Pilnyak’s work ended up in print. But it was soon banned. Pilnyak was arrested only in 1937, and before that he remained one of the most published prose writers. The writer's case, like all similar ones, was completely fabricated - he was accused of spying for Japan. Shot in Moscow in 1937.
Other writers and poets who were subjected to Stalinist repression:
- Victor Bagrov.
- Yuliy Berzin.
- Pavel Vasiliev.
- Sergey Klychkov.
- Vladimir Narbut.
- Petr Parfenov.
- Sergei Tretyakov.
It is worth talking about the famous theater figure, accused under Article 58 and sentenced to capital punishment.
Vsevolod Meyerhold
The director was arrested at the end of June 1939. His apartment was later searched. A few days later, Meyerhold's wife was killed. The circumstances of her death have not yet been clarified. There is a version that she was killed by NKVD officers.
Meyerhold was interrogated for three weeks and tortured. He signed everything the investigators required. On February 1, 1940, Vsevolod Meyerhold was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out the next day.
During the war years
In 1941, the illusion of lifting repressions appeared. In Stalin's pre-war times, there were many officers in the camps who were now needed free. Together with them, about six hundred thousand people were released from prison. But this was a temporary relief. At the end of the forties, a new wave of repression began. Now the ranks of “enemies of the people” have been joined by soldiers and officers who have been in captivity.
Amnesty 1953
On March 5, Stalin died. Three weeks later, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree according to which a third of the prisoners were to be released. About a million people were released. But the first to leave the camps were not political prisoners, but criminals, which instantly worsened the criminal situation in the country.
